Debating annual front-page articles that focus almost exclusively on Ivy League colleges and other highly competitive institutions that reject the vast majority of their applicants, the author reports that, in 2007, 80 percent of current first-year students were admitted to their top-choice college, according to an annual survey of more than 270,000 freshmen conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles and that all but the most selective colleges continue to admit a large proportion of students who apply. Nationally, the average acceptance rate for applicants is close to 70 percent, a number that has changed little since the mid-1980s, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling. The real issue, according to the executive director of Colleges That Change Lives, is that so-called admissions scare stories further the perception that it has become nearly impossible to get into any college, not just an elite one. Despite the depictions of admissions frenzy, high-school counselors and admission deans approached by the author believe that most students come through the application process unscathed and that, if students have conducted a thoughtful search, they need apply to only four or five colleges. Offered one dean of admission and financial aid, "They realize that they might not get in everywhere they apply." And by not setting one's heart on a single college, the admissions process is significantly stress-reduced.